The El Nino effect has developed from an evolving phenomenon in April into a strong category.
Director Fiji Meteorology Ravin Kumar says the impact from the current El Nino effect could be worse that the drought of 1997 and 1998.
‘’In the last 3-4 months we’ve seen Fiji has been receiving less rainfall that it’s supposed to be getting even though it was in the dry months we normally get about 50-100mm of rainfall,. In most parts of the country we didn’t get this much and it was only about half of the rainfall that we got in the last 4 months’’.
Kumar says the Western and Northern Division – and the smaller islands are moving into drier than normal conditions.
Current temperatures are as much as 2.5 degrees higher than normal.
El Nino is a warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical pacific, which can have profound effects on weather patterns around the world.
